The Zhitong Finance App learned that Daiwa released a research report stating that it has lowered the profit forecast for Haidilao (06862) per share from 2026 to 2028 to reflect unimproved demand and sales losses, and lowered the target price from HK$13.2 to HK$11.3, reaffirming the “outperform the market” rating.
Yamato pointed out that Haidilao's controlling shareholder reduced its holdings by 259 million shares due to its own capital needs and financial arrangements. The bank tends to interpret it as a one-off incident, believing that the relevant pressure has been removed, but in the short term, Chinese consumers and consumer stocks may still be affected by negative sentiment about similar matters.
The bank does not expect similar risks to extend to Yihai International (01579). Since the controlling shareholder has low shareholding and market capitalization in Yihai, it believes it should focus on Haidilao's operations and prospects at present. According to the bank, the turnover rate in August may have improved month-on-month, but not necessarily a year-on-year increase; the turnover rate in September is expected to be driven by a low base, but demand for the fourth quarter of 2026 is still unclear.
The management said at the August performance briefing that 2026 will be the first year of construction of Zhongtai restaurants to accelerate the expansion of Haidilao restaurants (medium single-digit percentage opening, sinking market/core business districts to 10 to 20, speeding up opening in 2027), and that new brands under the “Red Pomegranate Plan” already have the conditions for large-scale replication. It is expected that in 2026, there will be about 30/10 small stand hotpot/sushi stores, respectively, in 2027. The bank believes that the market's expectations for these business formats are low.